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.\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994, 2003
.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
.\" are met:
.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
.\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
.\" without specific prior written permission.
.\"
.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
.\"
.\" from: @(#)chown.8 8.3 (Berkeley) 3/31/94
.\" $NetBSD: chown.8,v 1.12 2017/07/04 06:53:12 wiz Exp $
.\"
.Dd September 11, 2016
.Dt CHOWN 8
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm chown
.Nd change file owner and group
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Oo
.Fl R
.Op Fl H | Fl L | Fl P
.Oc
.Op Fl fhv
.Ar owner Ns Op Ar :group
.Ar
.Nm
.Oo
.Fl R
.Op Fl H | Fl L | Fl P
.Oc
.Op Fl fhv
.Ar :group
.Ar
.Nm
.Oo
.Fl R
.Op Fl H | Fl L | Fl P
.Oc
.Op Fl fhv
.Fl Fl reference=rfile
.Ar
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Nm
sets the user ID and/or the group ID of the specified files.
Symbolic links named by arguments are silently left unchanged unless
.Fl h
is used.
.Pp
The options are as follows:
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Fl H
If the
.Fl R
option is specified, symbolic links on the command line are followed.
(Symbolic links encountered in the tree traversal are not followed.)
.It Fl L
If the
.Fl R
option is specified, all symbolic links are followed.
.It Fl P
If the
.Fl R
option is specified, no symbolic links are followed.
.It Fl R
Change the user ID and/or the group ID for the file hierarchies rooted
in the files instead of just the files themselves.
.It Fl f
Do not report any failure to change file owner or group, nor modify
the exit status to reflect such failures.
.It Fl h
If
.Ar file
is a symbolic link, the owner and/or group of the link is changed.
.It Fl v
Cause
.Nm
to be verbose, showing files as they are processed.
.El
.Pp
The
.Fl H ,
.Fl L
and
.Fl P
options are ignored unless the
.Fl R
option is specified.
In addition, these options override each other and the
command's actions are determined by the last one specified.
The default is as if the
.Fl P
option had been specified.
.Pp
The
.Fl L
option cannot be used together with the
.Fl h
option.
.Pp
The
.Ar owner
and
.Ar group
operands are both optional, however, one must be specified; alternatively,
both the owner and group may be specified using a reference
.Ar rfile
specified using the
.Fl Fl reference
argument.
If the
.Ar group
operand is specified, it must be preceded by a colon (``:'') character.
.Pp
The
.Ar owner
may be either a user name or a numeric user ID.
The
.Ar group
may be either a group name or a numeric group ID.
Since it is valid to have a user or group name that is numeric (and
does not have the numeric ID that matches its name) the name lookup
is always done first.
Preceding an ID with a ``#'' character will force it to be taken
as a number.
.Pp
The ownership of a file may only be altered by a super-user for
obvious security reasons.
.Pp
Unless invoked by the super-user,
.Nm
clears the set-user-id and set-group-id bits on a file to prevent
accidental or mischievous creation of set-user-id and set-group-id
programs.
.Sh EXIT STATUS
.Ex -std chown
.Sh COMPATIBILITY
Previous versions of the
.Nm
utility used the dot (``.'') character to distinguish the group name.
This has been changed to be a colon (``:'') character so that user and
group names may contain the dot character.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr chflags 1 ,
.Xr chgrp 1 ,
.Xr find 1 ,
.Xr chown 2 ,
.Xr lchown 2 ,
.Xr fts 3 ,
.Xr symlink 7
.Sh STANDARDS
The
.Nm
command is expected to be POSIX 1003.2 compliant.
.Pp
The
.Fl v
option and the use of ``#'' to force a numeric lookup
are extensions to
.St -p1003.2 .
.Sh HISTORY
A
.Nm
utility appeared in
.At v1 .
|
